


To Lay a Ghost

by Bluewolf458



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4571292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sort of companion piece to The Mystery in Apartment 103, it answers the mystery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Lay a Ghost

To Lay a Ghost

by Bluewolf

I loved Anita so much... so very much.

As was customary, our marriage was arranged by our parents - she was seventeen when we married, I was nineteen - but we had been allowed to meet, allowed to get to know each other - unlike some couples who met for the first time on their wedding day. I never thought to question it - people of our status accepted that when it came to marriage, our parents knew best. Family, and sometimes political, alliances were made, business partnerships consolidated, through these arranged marriages.

And I loved her from the day we first met, three years before we were joined in matrimony.

Oh, I knew she didn't love me the way I loved her - she was only fourteen, barely old enough to know her own mind in affairs of the heart - but she liked me well enough, and with that I was, at least at the time, content.

The three years between our first meeting and our marriage were, for me, happy ones, and they seemed to speed past - though not really fast enough for my liking. By the time I was eighteen, I was desperate for the arrival of the day when we would be joined. But - although some brides were wed at sixteen, all of our parents were agreed that Anita should be at least seventeen, and finally - finally! - her seventeenth birthday arrived. Our wedding was arranged for a week after that.

I took her on a journey through Europe for our honeymoon - a journey I had done, with that in mind, the previous year, and revelled in the pleasure she seemed to derive from the many places we visited, the many wonders I could show her. Only later did I discover that much of that apparent pleasure was feigned. I had been well educated; I spoke French, German, Spanish and Italian quite fluently, and found the lack of the English tongue in those countries to be no handicap. Anita, however, did not speak any language other than English and, it eventually transpired, was unhappy that she could not understand what the local people were saying. But I did not learn that until many months later, and at the time congratulated myself on giving her a honeymoon to remember.

When we returned to America, we settled into my father's house, a house that one day would be mine, taking possession of the suite of rooms that I had occupied before I entered marital bliss. It was a big house, as befitted my father's wealth and position in society. Anita - although she would one day inherit a comfortable fortune - had three older brothers, and had no claim on her father's home.

We could, of course, have established ourselves elsewhere, but this house would be mine one day; it made sense for Anita to get to know it, know the servants...

Our first child, born almost a year after our marriage, was a girl.

I didn't particularly care, though my mother muttered some harsh words regarding Anita's failure to produce a boy. Isobel - Belle - was a beautiful child, a charmer even as a baby. My father adored her from the day she was born and - eventually - even Mother admitted that if Anita _had_ to produce a daughter, at least she had produced a pretty, well-behaved one.

Fortunately for Mother's views on the subject, our second child, born some fifteen months later, was a boy - though again, I was just happy that Anita had survived giving me another child.

However, shortly after Terence was born, Anita changed. She seemed to push me away, and I simply could not understand why. We had been happy, yet now... Now she seldom smiled. She was attentive to the children, but practically ignored me.

And then one day, when Terence was nearly a year old, I arrived home early... and found Anita, my beautiful, adored Anita, in the arms of another man - my cousin Harold, son of my mother's sister. He tried to bluster, to say that Anita had tripped and he had merely caught her just before I entered the room, but I could see the guilt in his eyes... and in hers, and wondered how many other times he had visited her when I was occupied at the office. I remained icily polite, as befitted my station, and ushered him out, then turned to my faithless wife.

"Why?" I asked.

"I love him," she said.

"Love... I thought you loved me."

She smiled then, but sadly. "No, Andrew. I like you, and I was happy that I was sold to a man I could like - "

"Sold?" I was honestly horrified at her choice of word.

"That is what it amounts to. My parents agreed with yours for the benefits our marriage would bring to both families. Did you not realize that?"

"Well... yes... but... "

"There is little love involved when people of our class marry," she said. "Do you really believe that your parents love each other, are faithful to each other?"

I had to admit that my father, at least... "Many men take a mistress," I said. "It's a convenience, it means nothing - "

"And many wives, including your mother, have a lover - someone who will give them the love their husbands do not."

"I have always loved you!"

"Have you?" she asked. "Have you truly loved me, or have you just imagined you have?" I had to admit she sounded sad.

"I love you," I repeated.

"Then I am sorry," she said. "Sorry I could not love you. Sorry you found out about Harold."

"Does he actually love you, or has he just been trying to take you from me?" I asked. "He has always been jealous of what I had." My mother's family had never possessed the wealth that my father's family did, and I had long known that Harold resented the fact. I saw from the look in her eyes that I had struck doubt into her mind. And that brought a doubt into my own mind. "Are the children even mine?"

"Yes," she said. "You were the only man I lay with until after Terence was born. I owed you that much."

"And now?"

She licked her lips in a manner I can only describe as nervous. "I... don't know." Something about the tone of her voice...

"Are you pregnant again?"

"I... I think I might be. It's too early yet to be sure. My courses are only two or three days late, but... "

"And the father?"

"I don't know."

It was too much. I could, I think, have remained in control even if she had said 'Harold', but... she didn't know which of us it was. I completely lost control of my temper.

Occasionally a deer would stray onto the grass in front of our window, and I had developed the habit of keeping a loaded gun in the room so that I could shoot the beast. In my anger I reached for it, and before Anita could do anything, I shot her. Even as her body hit the floor, I knew that she was dead.

I stood for a moment looking at her body, and then realization dawned. I would be arrested for her murder, tried, condemned, and hanged. Such a penalty for killing an unfaithful wife? No. And yet... I should pay for killing the woman I loved.

Quickly, I reloaded the gun and wedged the muzzle under my chin. I could just reach the trigger...

***

For a moment I thought I had failed to fire the gun... and then I realized that I was actually standing beside my body. It lay on the ground, half of my head blown away, my blood staining the carpet. Where Anita had gone, I had no idea. Her body lay there, but she herself had gone.

The door opened, and one of the servants ran in, her attention undoubtedly drawn by the two gunshots. She took one look, screamed and rushed out. Moments later, the room filled with people...

***

For some reason the room where I had died, where I now 'lived', was left empty, its door locked. Of course, in a house as large as ours, many rooms were unused for much of the time. I could leave the room, but seldom cared to after one afternoon when I discovered proof that Anita's claim that my mother had a lover was true. I remained in 'my' room, yes, I admit, brooding.

My younger brother Howard - or was he only my half brother, I wondered - inherited the house when my father died . What provision had been made for my children I didn't know, though I assumed Father had left them provided for - yes, I know it should have been my responsibility, but I had believed I had many years before I needed to make a will.

Howard's wife died in childbirth, the child dying too. Although his, too, had been an arranged marriage, Howard, like me, had loved his wife, and chose not to remarry; and on his death, in a strange irony, it was Harold's grandson Martin who eventually inherited the house.

Martin already had a house - although much smaller, it seemed it suited him, and he sold this one - and to my horror, he sold it to a man who called himself a 'developer', who promptly put builders in and divided the house into several small apartments that had only three or four rooms.

At least 'my' room was once again in use. To my surprise, I found I quite enjoyed the company of the brothers who shared the 'apartment' of which it was part. One was an invalid, crippled in some foreign war, and when he died, the surviving brother sold the apartment to a young married couple.

They seemed happy, but was that the truth? Was she faithful? It was natural for a man to take a mistress, it meant nothing, but how could he ever be certain that her children were also his?

Even as I wondered, I could see doubt beginning to enter his mind. He never actually challenged her, but one day he took a gun and shot her... and then killed himself, even as I had.

Their family removed all the furniture and for some months the only company I had was that of two mice who sometimes came in and chased each other around the empty rooms. I mean, mice? In my day either the kitchen cat would have caught them or the servants would have put down traps. Now it seemed they could run around as if they owned the place!

A few people came to look at the apartment, but went away again. After some months, though, another young couple bought it. I watched them. Was she faithful? Was she? How could he ever be sure? It seemed that he, too, had his doubts, because one day he too produced a gun, shot her and then himself.

This time the furniture was not removed, but once again the apartment remained empty of people for some months. And then once again it was bought by a young couple, Tom and Katy Wilson..

To say I was horrified by their behavior would be an understatement. Not only did they not share a bedroom, they were both openly unfaithful, although they seemed genuinely fond of each other. And... he seemed totally unmoved by my outrage on his behalf. My doubts about the women called Alice and Sandra had affected their husbands; this one seemed almost amused about my doubts regarding Katy, and the more amused he became the more I felt my link to the room failing...

***

Tom Wilson relaxed one evening after getting home from work. Odd - the strange, silent voice he had been 'hearing' ever since he and his sister Katy had moved into the apartment had gone. He grinned. It had been trying to persuade him that Katy was unfaithful - really! But it had been a source of amusement for him. He had never mentioned it to Katy. Should he?

No. What was the point? But he did wonder... had the apartment been haunted by the ghost of the previous occupant?

Not that he was ever likely to find out.

Ghosts, after all, were merely a figment of the imagination.


End file.
